Giovanni Migliara (Alessandria 1785-1837 Milan)

Giovanni Migliara was a Milanese vedutiste who worked in La Scala designing sets until illness prevented him from working for the opera and he turned to small scale works. He was at the forefront of the Italian Romantic movement and is included by the greatest Italian Romantic painter, Francesco Hayez, in his group portrait of 1827 of Italy's five leading Romantic artists now in the Museum Poldi Pezzoli in Milan.
The present picture is an exquisite production inspired by the Dutch and Flemish 17th Century painters of church interiors, but reinterpreted with added drama, focusing on the poetic effects of the contrast between light and shadow. Judging from the inscriptions on the frame '12 Aprile 1830 Il pinto ammira, ed il fratel rammenta' (the painter admires, and a brother remembers), the picture was intended as a gift, or token of affection from the artist, although for whom, it is not known.